Butch Trucks on a New Allman Brothers Record: ‘I Think We Might’

The Allman Brothers Band's most recent studio album will turn 10 next month, which is a long time even for a group of guys that would rather play live than record new music. Fortunately, according to drummer Butch Trucks, another record might be on the horizon.

Trucks touched on the topic of new music during a wide-ranging recent interview with Jambase, revealing that Gregg Allman "is in the best shape he’s probably been in for decades" -- not only in terms of his health, which was endangered due to complications with his liver, but creatively too. "The word is that he’s got a bunch of new songs ready to go," said Trucks, "and that right there in itself is something we haven’t had in a few years."

As it turns out, "the word" Trucks is referring to came directly from Allman himself. "I just got an email from Gregg a couple weeks ago -- and it’s not something he does very often -- so you know something special is going on," he pointed out. "You could just feel it in the email that he was beaming. He said, 'I got all these new songs ready to go, I can’t wait. See you guys in New York.' That just made my day -- it made my year and maybe the next three or four years."

Asked if the band might actually start working on a new album in the foreseeable future, he responded, "Yeah, I think we might." First, though, the band is focused on their annual Beacon Theatre run, where they plan to play some of the new songs, as well as seven new covers. Then, they may finally release the long-overdue 40th anniversary live album, of which he said, "We’ve been pounding on people for four years. We recorded that thing in 2009 and here it’s 2013 and it’s not even out yet."